Entries Tagged as 'Senate'

November 10th, 2014, 9:26am by Sam Wang

At The American Prospect: Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:'https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’); In the home stretch, I wrote that midterm polling is far less accurate than in Presidential years. Today, in The American Prospect, I detail how this year’s polling errors are correlated with voter turnout, which was the lowest since 1942, as based on Michael McDonald’s tabulation [...]

November 5th, 2014, 11:41am by Sam Wang

Pre-election PEC Senate aggregate: 52 Republican seats. Outcome: 52 or more Republican seats (Alaska is not called, and Louisiana goes to a runoff). As I wrote in The New Republic, last night’s performance by the GOP was remarkable. In close Senate races, Republicans outperformed polls by an average of 5.3 percentage points. Prime examples of [...]

November 4th, 2014, 2:00pm by Sam Wang

Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:'https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’); Despite the certainty of pundits, we actually don’t know who will win the Senate! In The New Yorker, I explain. From 2004 to 2012, only thirteen Senate races have had margins of less than three percentage points in the week before the election. Of these, four were won by the [...]

November 3rd, 2014, 7:00pm by Sam Wang

Coming into the home stretch, President Obama’s net approval/disapproval rating is at minus 8%. Not good…but 4% better than June. This is what candidates face as in-person voting starts tomorrow morning.

November 3rd, 2014, 10:05am by Sam Wang

I am thinking about how to get the most accurate last-minute snapshots of races, and how to turn that into a scorecard for you (and me) to use on Election Night. I’m also thinking about Brier scores as a means of evaluating the various prognosticators, including me. In the meantime, here’s your morning reading: an [...]

November 2nd, 2014, 12:00pm by Sam Wang

I got into poll aggregation in 2004 to reduce endless chatter about outlier polls. Hmmm, how’d that work out… — Sam Wang (@SamWangPhD) November 2, 2014 At least one journalist is chattering about whether there’s a late break in polls for Republicans…based on one data point, which is probably statistical noise. Some people are hopeless. [...]

October 31st, 2014, 9:37pm by Sam Wang

I’ll be on CNN (Smerconish, sometime between 9 and 10) and MSNBC (Up with Steve Kornacki, live between 9 and 9:30). Key point on CNN (watch it here): is this Tuesday’s election an Obama referendum, or an echo of previous wave elections in 2008 and 2010?

October 31st, 2014, 12:05am by Sam Wang

Tweet !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:'https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);Senate polls in individual states have moved around…but the Meta-Margin and the average seat count have stayed stable. Nonetheless, the crystal ball is cloudy. Why is that? The Midterm Polling Curse. Spoooooky! As I wrote last week, everyone’s calculations are, to an extent, built on sand. Historically, in any given year [...]